Nekonomicon - unixmuseum

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Compiling YafRay V0.0.7 On MIPSPRO at Dec. 18, 2004, 11:07 a.m...

As sgi removed Display Postscript (WHY!?!?! Because Linux doesn't use it???), Photoshop can't deal very well with EPS and text... This SUX SUX SUX!
Too bad because the application is fine, it's Photoshop allright... Now, comparing it to Photoshop 8, you notice that Photoshop8 is a bloated pig... BUT, Photoshop8 psd open fine in IRIX Photoshop 3.01 and vice versa... That is cool, backwards compatibility 5 releases back, it's pretty rare!
The redneck-O2 for instance was done on IRIX Photoshop, to the exception of the text that had to be done in 8...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Compiling YafRay V0.0.7 On MIPSPRO at Dec. 18, 2004, 12:35 p.m...

Diego wrote:

I've not tried, but... what about an independent repackaged DIsplay PostScript tardist with some kind of "rules override", or something else... :roll:

Could work to get Photoshop/Illustrator working on IRIX 6.5.22~6.5.26? :roll:

I only use GIMP, and only a few times at month, but no reason to lack support on the other side...

EDITED: ...Or it is right on the IRIX kernel, or 'Motif', or 'X', etc...? :roll:

I was wondering the same thing... dps_eoe is the package, but has been removed from the latest (6.5.22 or 23 was it?) and marked incompatible... I would think there might be a way of putting it back, but I'm too chicken to try...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of A trustworthy sgi supplier in LA... at Dec. 20, 2004, 4:03 p.m...

solarvaria wrote: I know Dak (as he goes by). I've done some support and cosulting work for him recently on a deal he was working for an Onyx.

I've spent some time working at his location on Prairie over in Inglewood. He does have quite an inventory of older stuff (mostly I2s, Indys, Challenges) and I was going to pick some up from him but the prices were a little steep compared to the current "market" rates. Still, I'd say he's a trustworthy seller.

He certainly has a strong ethic when it comes to dealing with his customers.

Cheers,
Richard

Yes, that's Dak allright, you are 100% correct in your assesment.
Thanks for not bashing on the competition, all the better to you!
Now, about this 400 PM20... :lol:

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Mixed feelings. at Dec. 20, 2004, 4:10 p.m...

lisp wrote:

ZoontF wrote:

*snip ramble*

And here i was, just gloating over having a pair all of my own to play with, with Real Crinkle Action and Multicoloured Ring Mounting points!

That's how I read your post, but I guess zoon took it too seriously...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Blender 2.36 released at Dec. 27, 2004, 9:49 a.m...

Does anybody have a good suggestion for Photoshop plug-in resources for IRIX? I've been looking on the web quite a bit, but can naturally only come up with Mac/Win stuff...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Blender 2.36 released at Dec. 27, 2004, 12:19 p.m...

foetz wrote:

old version of kpt should be around somewhere... :wink:

Thanks! I was more looking for file format type of plugins, like png... It appears thatplugins need to be compiled on IRIX in order for them to work...

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.
and authored 2767 notes

Wrote on the subject of IRIX look & feel .gtkrc at Jan. 24, 2005, 11:06 a.m...

I'm slowly, and painfully, working my way towards an IRIX-looking gtkrc for gtk1... I still have the borders, checkboxes and scrollbar to figure out...
I was wondering if anybody had done it already and would share it here...

BTW, yes, I am aware pf gtkbuffy, but the colors seemed off, at least on VPro... But I'm still looking into it...

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 1, 2005, 10:06 p.m...

zolotroph wrote:

It's old news that in the visual effects industry, MIPS/IRIX is effectively dead on the desktop. There may be post houses with legacy machines still in their pipeline, but what about new hardware? I'm curious to know: Aside from discreet, who is buying MIPS/IRIX workstations in 2005, and what applications do they use? Obviously SGI still has a big presence in high end visualization, HPC and defense, but that's primarily driven by solutions on the Onyx/Origin level, not by workstations. So who's buying/using Tezro (besides discreet), and Fuel?

Let's extend the question further: In 2005, who buys UNIX workstations in general (IBM, HP, Sun, etc.), and what applications do they use? How are UNIX workstations able to compete in price/performance against the Wintel PC juggernaut in any industry anymore?

I assume that in certain industries, there are still valid reasons for choosing workstations over PCs. I also assume that in some instances, it's simply a case of momentum, that an industry has so much invested in legacy UNIX architecture that it's easier to replace existing hardware with the same thing than to convert their entire infrastructure (hardware and software) to PC-based solutions. I'd like to hear from people working in industries where UNIX workstations still endure: what are some of the reasons PCs haven't taken over yet?

Finally, there is speculation that SGI is working on a new Linux workstation, below Prism in the product line. Who would buy it? How could it justify its price/performance over commodity Linux PCs? What Linux applications could require greater performance than that attainable on PCs but less than that attainable on Prism? Did SGI fail to learn their lesson about the commodity market after their disastrous experiment with PCs?

Anyone?

-zolo

In my world:

- CAD/CAE desktop workstations (I-DEAS, UG, Pro/E, Nastran, ANSYS, ...)
- CAE compute servers (Nastran, ANSYS, ...)
- Large scale distributed applications (Oracle, PDM servers).

In this world, PCs usually cannot compete. They perform better for small problems, but cannot scale up past 32-bit addressing...

As for the Linux workstation, I don't see it being much used in my world as most commercial applications I use are not yet supported on Linux and probably won't be for a few years...

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 1, 2005, 10:36 p.m...

LaLora wrote:

ANSYS and Nastran are fully supported for Linux and workstations running Linux, both 32 and 64-bit.

Yes they are... 32-bit Linux needs a recompile of the kernel to address more than 800MB, but it works a little better than on Windows...

"Fully supported" is a big overstatement if you're used to dealing with software companies. MSC supports 2.4.x kernel, UGS supports a little more, including sgi ProPack. This is certified OS. It doesn't mean it won't work on more recent versions, but it means the software vendor is not obligated to support you if it doesn't work... ANSYS supports about the same as UGS as far as Linux OS.

A good example of sgi Linux technology: NX Nastran is actually optimized for the Altix platform, based on sgi specific libraries ported from IRIX (ffio, MPI, ...).

What's not running at all or not very well on Linux are the major pre/post processors... Patran runs like shite on Linux, FEMAP and I-DEAS don't run at all. These three account for about 85%-90% of the FEA pre/post software... One of the biggest issues with Linux is getting consitent OGL performance and quality. These tools heavily depend on OGL.

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 2, 2005, 2:50 a.m...

hamei wrote:

Look at the figures unixmuseum posted a while back. For FEA work on largish models the whizz-bag peecee was four minutes faster than an antique Octane

Here are a little more results, as I recently upgraded the main Octane2 to a dual 400 (which leaves an extra single 400, if anybody is interested).

The model I posted results for wasn't a big model, but yet the numbers kinda spoke for themselves already:

- PIV 2.7GHz: 76min to complete the task
- Octane2 single 400: 80min
- Octane2 dual 400: 65min
- Tezro dual 700: 44min

I should go through the effort of doubling or tripling the model size, the gap would be even bigger (especially when we hit that 32-bit limit :lol:

)

To me, the bottom line is not simply the time it takes to accomplish one single task. It's "how many tasks can I accomplish at the same time?".

Well, with my groovy PIV, I could accomplish a grand total of 1 task during 76 minutes: solving the model. Even the screen saver (nothing eleborate, just the WinXP logo in 2D) was putting the whole system in jeopardy!

With any of the UNIX workstations (especially the dual CPU), I was working on other things at the same time... This example is with sgi, but it would be rtue with HP or Sun...

I still have many of my clients still buying UNIX workstations (and definitely servers) for that exact reason. The first few days they're being picked on by the PC boys who have PIV 128.234THz (the 128.235 is coming out next week, let's replace the old 128.234!) running small test models soooo much faster than the UNIX junk... A week later, they come by the UNIX guy, begging for CPU time as their PCs can't take the large models...

I'm not saying there is no place for PCs, I'm saying the PCs do not and cannot replace everything.

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
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Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 2, 2005, 3:50 p.m...

jwhat wrote:

Slight tangent here, but if you look at UnixM time results:

- PIV 2.7GHz: 76min to complete the task
- Octane2 single 400: 80min
- Octane2 dual 400: 65min
- Tezro dual 700: 44min

You will notice that the Tezro Dual 700 timing is pretty much exactly what you would expect if you just had single CPU ie 80 * 400 / 700 = 45 min

The difference between single 400 and dual 400 likely represents moving of OS processing (IRIX) to second CPU making other one available just for model processing.
If UnixM model process application was multitreaded then I would expect that time would go way down: 80 * 400 / (2 * 700) = 23 minutes.
So to get real performance improvements you need to look at the application software not the hardware.

It is true that in general, at least my experience, that the computing power on the sgi increases linearly with the processor speed. This is quite an accomplishment, something we don't see much anymore...

But in the case of this Nastran solve, it's a little bit more complicated than this. A Nastran solve involves a little more than pure CPU, there is actually a large amount of I/O going on.
Nastran is "multi-threaded", in two ways: SMP & DMP. SMP, which is the way I ran this model, doesn't bring that much to the table, only a few percents. DMP, which is a cluster-type distribution would definitely bring the compute time down. It's not a simple linear performance improvement, it never is, although it is close with DMP. DMP can actually be used on a single machine, multi-CPU machine, and will bring better results than SMP. It also greatly depends on the types of problems being solved

Other benefits that I see in the sgi architecture (and these made it into sgi Linux Propack): dynamic threads, to be able to suspend a process and come back later and start it again. This functionnality is quite amazing: you've got a process that runs for 3 days, you stop it and perform system maintenance and whatnot, reboot the machine, do whatever you want. You are then able to restart the process where you left it! Another one is ffio, an asynchronous read/write of scratch files... This by itself usually gets me 15%-20% time gains. These are unique to the sgi architecture...

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 2, 2005, 4:38 p.m...

jdboyd wrote:

I've seen other people say that as well. Yet, I have three linux machines here, one with 1 gig, and 2 with 2 gigs, and I don't recall doing anything to make them see and use the entire ram. One of the machines is using a stock RHEL 3 kernel, one is using the stock RH9 kernel (because I haven't changed it yet),

No, this is not the issue... It "sees" the memory, can't address bigger chunks...

jdboyd wrote:

and one is running a custom compiled kernel with the bigphysarea patch (but I don't recall doing anything fancy in the configuration).

Besides recompiling the kernel? :lol:

jdboyd wrote:

Is the real issue that a single application can't use more than 800 megs? Even still, on the RHEL box I've run a program that used 900 megs.

That's more like it. Quote from the NX Nastran Installation & Operation Guide:

Quote:

Linux Memory Allocation Limit on 32-bit Platform
The standard Linux memory structure only allocates approximately 850MB of memory for an NX Nastran job. This is a limitation of the Linux operating system and not of NX Nastran. If you re running NX Nastran on a Linux operating system, and you want to access more than 1GB of physical RAM on a given machine, you must install both of the following:

http://rpmfind.net

http://www.daimi.au.dk/~kasperd/linux_k ... apped/base

Together, these two patches allow your system to allocate more than 850MB of memory.

unixmuseum
Old Salt
Who joined April 19, 2004, 11:25 p.m.
and authored 2694 notes

Wrote on the subject of Who buys UNIX workstations anymore? at Feb. 8, 2005, 2:14 a.m...

hamei wrote:

Actually, none of that is necessarily true. I know the person in charge of ground tracking for Hubble. They are dumping almost all their SGI gear and changing to Sun because Sun has better performance for much lower costs. And there's another thing - they have one or two big Origins which *need* support contracts (even if it's only for hardware.) Of course SGI refuses to let them buy support for just those machines. If you have 200+ seats of Irix, that's what you get to pay for.

As I said, Hubble ground tracking is dumping SGI in a big way. This has been going on for over a year.

Apparently, the hardware upgrade is aparently not necessary anymore... A nice display of our tax dollars in action...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/02/0 ... index.html

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of The Bullshit keeps falling down... at Feb. 8, 2005, 10:22 p.m...

Yes, 12whitediamonds is back on ebay with his tacky overpriced paint job/LED Octane...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 1&tc=photo

Compared to the machine he got for $120 from 1stsourceusa, that makes for expensive paint & LEDs!

But the main question I want to ask: can I run Linux on it?

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 11, 2005, 4:35 p.m...

Feels good to report some things going smooth every now an then.
After dismantling an external sgi CD-ROM drive and replace the CD by a Toshiba SD-M1401, I am happy to report a complete success!
I already had done a complet 6.5+6.5.27 install from the same Toshiba drive in an O2, and now it is mounted properly in an external enclosure.

mplayer is able to play VOB from there without a problem. Only issue is the loss of the audio over SCSI as the connectors aren't the same...

Next step is to make an IRIX 6.5+6.5.27 installation DVD.

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 11, 2005, 5:08 p.m...

QuicksilverG4 wrote: What are you connecting the external DVD-ROM to? Can't you just connect the external audio out on the enclosure to RCA audio in on the SGI?

To nothing... The audio plays fine, it's just the audio out connectors that are not operational because of internal connectors incompatibility. Not a big deal as I don't use the audio out, and it's certainly fixable...
Oh, and another thing, the SCSI ID pins are the opposite of the CD-ROM (ID1/ ID2/ID4 vs ID4/ID2/ID1), so really, if you want SCS ID1, you need to set the ID counter to 4...

QuicksilverG4 wrote: What are you playing the .VOB's on? The Octane is my sole machine for awhile, it'd be nice to watch DVD's on it!

Octane2... mplayer works like a charm!

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 11, 2005, 9:48 p.m...

zafunk wrote:

unixmuseum wrote: Next step is to make an IRIX 6.5+6.5.27 installation DVD.

I put a 1401 in my O2. It's quite nice. I hope you get somewhere with the installer DVD. That would be awesome!

Making a DVD of IRIX shouldn't be too hard, it's just a matter of dumping everything in the same dist directory, really...

Now, as far as the enclosure deal, looks like I spoke a little too soon... I'm getting some hard errors on the SCSI (no kernel panic though)... DVD play just fine, but CDs seemed to have a hard time... I did a fresh IRIX install from the same DVD-ROM but mounted in the O2 and everything went just fine...

Oh, and the SCSI ID reverse, you can also reverse the SCSI ID cable that connects to the DVD, so everything is AOK for that...

The SCSI error I get is probably a matter of jumpers/firmware, but for now, it'll go back in the O2...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Corey, I found your Octane! at Feb. 11, 2005, 10:27 p.m...

Quit selling blood to pay for your Octane, I found one for you :lol:

This is the auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... otohosting

This is what it looked like before the moron shipped it to irewoulfe wrapped in a blanket:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... otohosting

This one will go for cheap! Could be a nice uprgade project :lol:

Now, looking at the sobbing story of poor irewoulfe (couldn't use his idonotselljunk alias on this one for obvious reasons) who tells us how he got robbed, I can't help but think:

- we're going to miss a "fully refurbished" MXI at $300 on ebay
- we're going to see 2 sleds for $25 a piece
- we're going to see 3 XIO fillers for $15 a piece
- we're going to see 384MB for $35
- I'm never going to buy from dph121
- irewoulfe/idonotselljunk will get his money back as insurance was required

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 11, 2005, 10:39 p.m...

zafunk wrote: I put a 1401 in my O2. It's quite nice. I hope you get somewhere with the installer DVD. That would be awesome!

BTW, did you take it apart an fit the O2 skin on it or is it still the grey/black bezel on it?

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 12, 2005, 1:59 a.m...

radrob wrote: hi there

i have a toshiba dvd on my o2 r12k@400
it's not a mod but the facory setup of one of the last o2 produced

if you want i can take some photos
to see how it's setup-ed

on my other o2
i've replaced the fried old one
with a plextor
in that case some mods are required
but the results it's awesome

and..
OMG
the dvd project it's a real must

best
r.

Well, I am completely puzzled... Something must be wrong with my SCSI chain (not that huge, only a Yamaha 8/4/24 after the sgi enclosure).
This friggin' DVD-ROM would read DVD just fine when in the enclosure, but nothing else! I tried efs and ISO, nope! In the O2, it goes no problem, whatever I throw at it... I even installed IRIX from scratch on the O2 from the DVD-ROM!!!

Worse, I ripped apart an old (older than Corey :lol:

) Sun 411 CD enclosure and this works beautifully on the O2 as an external drive too!!! What is this?!?!?! This reminds me a lot of the firewire fiasco of last year...

Sigh... I guess I'll wait for a real sgi external DVD-ROM to become available on ebay...

As for the IRIX DVD, yes, I'll work on it. This is for pure convenience and backup purposes obviously.

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Corey, I found your Octane! at Feb. 12, 2005, 10:24 a.m...

Richtom1 wrote: Insurance??? ...UPS....

Now that's a contradiction of terms

If he does get reimbursed I wonder what year it will be and if he will recover the full purchase price or NOTTTTTTT. There's an old saying....just a little bit older than me that says: What goes around comes around" and another (that I live by) that says "Treat others as you would want to be treated)

FedEx is 100% better at paying an insurance claim in a timely manner or at all compared to UPS

I would much rather have FedEx over UPS any day

I wonder if UPS has changed their insurance payment policy (for the better) in the last few years??

Prejudiced....Me??

Richard

I can't stand any of these guys, being Fedex or UPS. They trash the boxes, don't give a shit, and charge a huge a lot.

A few years back, I was shipping an IRIX6.2 CD with UPS that got destroyed! The CD was in its case, wrapped in bubble wrap, and I used styrofoam as filler... 3 layers of protection before any harm could come to the CD. How do you destroy that? Not certain... But from that time, I have been shipping with USPS and have never, ever had an issue. Faster, cheaper and definitely cleaner delivery than Fedex & UPS.

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Corey, I found your Octane! at Feb. 12, 2005, 11:23 a.m...

QuicksilverG4 wrote: Maybe sgiseller will buy this one

There's nothing in it for him! You can be certain that irewoulfe took off every single piece that had any monetary value. What's left is a pile of junk!
The only thing inside that might be of any use are the fans and the sysID battery...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Corey, I found your Octane! at Feb. 12, 2005, 11:50 a.m...

nekonoko wrote: So why is he even trying to sell this thing anyway? To make some kind of statement? No one's going to pay a cent for that let alone shipping.

I think he's trashing the seller's reputation without entering in a negative feedback war... Works for me!

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of FlightGear v0.9.8 released at Feb. 12, 2005, 5:06 p.m...

OK, I need some efs insight from the gurus...
I am trying to use the same scripts to burn a 6.5.27+apps+compl_apps DVD to facilitate a fresh install (i.e. making a DVD bootable in efs format).

mkefs is barfing with mkfs_efs: can't find equivalent raw device for .../6.5.27-DVD.efs

Making an upgrade DVD is easy, but making it efs bootable is the pain in the neck...

Would anybody have a clue why?

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of FlightGear v0.9.8 released at Feb. 12, 2005, 5:19 p.m...

zafunk wrote:

I got stuck at about the same place....

have a look here

one of the hilights:

Quote:

> I'm pretty sure you can put ISO9660 filesystems on DVD media.

Yes, of course you can. However, the IRIX ISO9660 implementation was
done as a user mode NFS2 server and NFS aint available in the
miniroot, therefore no ISO9660 in the miniroot. In addition, the
implementation has an inherent 2GB filesystem size limit which is not a
problem for CDs but is a bit annoying for DVDs.

Gar! Now that I'm thinking of it, is there such a thing as blocksize for a DVD?

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of FlightGear v0.9.8 released at Feb. 14, 2005, 12:36 a.m...

Thaidog wrote:

Is there a complie for IBM http server for IRIX?

Which one? Are you talking about Websphere?

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi External CD-ROM Upgrade to DVD-ROM: Success! at Feb. 14, 2005, 10:34 a.m...

nekonoko wrote: Just an FYI that a seller called 'my-auction-genie' is selling quite a few grey Toshiba SD-M1401 drives pulled from Sun Enterprise 250s on eBay. I've won one so far and hopefully will get one more. No idea how reliable this seller is - so far I haven't received PayPal payment instructions on the drive I won yesterday.

Yep, I got mine from him, pretty good guy!

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at March 30, 2005, 2:33 p.m...

I'm trying to get the story straight...

There are a certain number of jumpers on the drive (which is a Toshiba SD-M1401), not sure which ones are on/off by default on the stock sgi one...

I have one, and it seems to be having problems mounting CDs or taking a long time "discovering" what type of CD it is... A srtange thing is the same SD-M1401 works just fine and is perfectly bootable in an O2, but I got a "device not ready" on an external enclosure...

Can anybody tell me what jumpers need to be on?

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at March 30, 2005, 3:30 p.m...

Hakimoto wrote: Shot in the dark, but check that the factory test jumper is not set. I've had Toshiba's behave strangely on me because of that.

Nope, it's not set... I've played with parity on/off and 512b/2k and it doesn't seem to work any better... Very strange that the same drive in the O2 works flawlessly...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at March 30, 2005, 9:04 p.m...

hamei wrote: Cables, termination, the usual scsi chicken-sacrificing procedure .... I've had an almost-new beautiful-looking cable crap out and the only way to tell was to buy a new one and install it. Poof ! Everything worked again ... sigh. Better than IDE tho ....

If only this was the case... I used the same cable with my 10+ year old sgi CD-ROM and it works perfectly...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of Need Help DVD Burner on Origin 3000 at March 31, 2005, 9:05 a.m...

mkatl976 wrote: Need help setting up and getting to work a DVD Burner that I have installed externally onto my SGI Origin 3000. The device is plugged into the USB# 1 port on the I-Brick. I have not installed the "freeware" software that SGI has on there site yet I wanted to see if anybody out here has some better ideas first.

Matthew

xcdroast is supposed to be able to do that just fine... Works great on IRIX for CDs, haven't tried with DVD (came close though, via firewire).

There is also Gear Pro, which I haven't played with, but it's supposed to let you burn DVDs... http://www.gearsoftware.com/products/prounix.cfm

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at April 3, 2005, 6:31 p.m...

jwhat wrote: UnixM,

Here is the answer to your original question on SGI jumpers.
The only non SCSI ID that is set to on is the "Parity" jumper.
There is no jumper on the 512/2K switch so I presume that means that 512 is the default.
Cheers,

Thanks for the reply, J.
From the jumpers settings page ( http://www.toshiba-europe.com/diskprodu ... p?page=PMN ), it looks like the 512/2K jumper needs to be in to allow 512 bytes...
I'll give it a shot with your jumper settings to see what happens... The last jumper is somewhat oddly explained too: "Always leave the jumpers in for the internal power supply of the terminators (8)". Not totally sure what that means exaclty...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at April 3, 2005, 7:58 p.m...

jwhat wrote: UnixM,

Well my "standard" setting has 512/2K jumer "off".
And I just did a OS install (6.5.27) update via DVD-ROM boot (as "Software Manager" crashed) and it booted from DVD-ROM no problem.
This means either that 512MB is standard block size and jumper changes this to 2K or that there is not longer the requirement for 512MB blocksize (ie PROM update has made this obselete).
Cheers.

OK, I just tried the exact same configuration (to the exception of the firmware which is at version 11, it was the same as yours before), tried on a different SCSI channel, and I am still getting the "device not ready" stuff... &^#&$^#&^$&^ !! Now, the only thing I can think of is either the lens is very dirty or the SCSI ID I'm using (1) makes IRIX unhappy... My external sgi CD-ROM works fine with SCSI ID 1 though...

unixmuseum
From Los Angeles, CA
Who joined April 19, 2004, 4:25 p.m.

Wrote on the subject of sgi branded external DVD-ROM question... at April 3, 2005, 8:34 p.m...

jwhat wrote: UnixM,

I just did a check on blocksize via scsicontrol -b and it reports the blocksize as being 512 even though there is no jumper on the 512/2K settting.
Maybe the firmware is different and has got 512 blocksize as the default...
just guessing...
Cheers.

OF COURSE!!!!! The blocksize is programmable!!! Thanks for the hint, this might be the explanation...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 25, 2005, 7:53 p.m...

Only dual CPU capable? WHY????

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 25, 2005, 8:44 p.m...

R-ten-K wrote:

That picture is of the larger visualization system, not the workstation BTW.

Yes it is... Someone is actually paying attention... :lol:

About that, happy now?

R-ten-K wrote:

So the item in that picture can actually go higher than dual processors

Right... The deskside isn't though, even if I had a picture of my grandmother in there :wink:

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 26, 2005, 8:51 a.m...

More shots, see how it dwarfes the 23" LCD... For some reason, they're pushing CFD visualization quite a bit!

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 26, 2005, 9:12 a.m...

hamei wrote:

Can we say VW320 deja vu ? :-)

Yes we can, sadly...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 26, 2005, 10:46 a.m...

SiliconBunny wrote:

The CFD crowd will be big customers for this sort of kit, especially given the sort of insane bandwidth it can handle.

Cheers,
TOM

Well, the CFD crowd will not really get excited over a dual CPU, I know, I'm part of this crowd :lol:

A 16x would for sure, provided the CFD code is designed for this... I guess the only reason they put CFD on screens is that with the right post-processing tool you can create some amazing pictures... These were taken off the different CFD vendors websites though, nothing more than a little photoshop...

unixmuseum
Who joined April 19, 2004, 3:25 p.m.
and authored 2783 notes

Wrote on the subject of Prism workstation is out! at April 26, 2005, 11:39 a.m...

Intel-OUTSIDE wrote:

and WTF IS WITH THAT SATA SHIT???

EXACTLY!

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